That would not appear to be optimal, but coach Kalani Sitake isn\u2019t concerned, he said in his weekly press briefing on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will make it a competitive advantage for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Obviously, that means the Cougars (1-0, 3-0) will get an early start on preparing for the Horned Frogs, who play at UCF on Saturday. Monday, it was announced that the BYU-TCU game in Fort Worth will kick off at 5 p.m. MDT<\/a> and be televised by either ESPN or ESPN2.<\/p>\n It will mark the first time in 21 years that BYU will play on the Saturday of the semiannual general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The game at Amon G. Carter Stadium will begin an hour after the second session (2 to 4 p.m.) of conference concludes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe prayed for him as a team and we prayed pregame and we prayed postgame, and we also prayed at the hotel before we left to go to our game. We just really, really love everything that Harrison\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0BYU coach Kalani Sitake about Harrison Taggart<\/p>\n TCU downed BYU 44-11 two years ago<\/a> in Fort Worth, but first things first, Sitake said. The Cougars will treat this week like they do every week during the season. They just won\u2019t have a game to play on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have our meetings and practice and lift (weights) and everything, and then we\u2019ll go throughout the whole week (doing that),\u201d Sitake said. \u201c\u2026 This will be another work week for us. I\u2019m excited to see our team get better this week, and then \u2026 get an early start on our opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n Sitake acknowledged that most coaches would prefer to have their bye in the middle of the season, but said he\u2019s not in charge of making the schedule and will make the most of it. Last year, after beating Portland State and Stanford before getting a Week 3 bye, the Cougars traveled to East Carolina and downed the Pirates 34-13.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that (the bye) comes after three games is not a bad thing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have been prepping ourselves to go 13 weeks straight. That\u2019s what we did from the very beginning, and then we adjusted the schedule and our workload according to where the bye fell in. \u2026 It\u2019s not really that big of a deal because our guys are trained. We\u2019ve worked all offseason to be ready for 14 weeks straight, or 13 weeks straight with a championship game at the end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Next year, college football will have a 14-week regular season and begin one week earlier in late August, rather than starting over the Labor Day weekend. That means teams will receive two bye weeks per season and the regular season will conclude the Saturday following Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n Along with developing younger players this week, BYU\u2019s coaches will use the time to do some recruiting, and decide which players will make the travel squad for TCU.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought the guys responded well to being on the road, and so now they have had that experience. Now we go to TCU, and we can only take 74 on the travel squad,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to iron those guys out and then get that roster ready to roll by the time we get to to Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n A week after losing 29-7 at Texas Tech last year, BYU returned home and walloped TCU 44-13, so Sitake expects that the Horned Frogs (2-1) will be looking for revenge.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are happy to be 3-0, and I am just really proud of the guys,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cWe watched the film (of the CSU game) and evaluated it and graded it, and we\u2019ve obviously got some work to do still. But for the first three games, I feel good about where we\u2019re at.\u201d<\/p>\n Sitake on LB Harrison Taggart\u2019s recovery<\/p>\n Before the Cougars drubbed Colorado State 41-23 in Fort Collins<\/a> last Saturday, many players and coaches tuned in to the Utah-Utah State game and watched former Cougar linebacker Harrison Taggart \u2014 now at USU \u2014 get carted off the field at Rice-Eccles Stadium<\/a> via an ambulance.<\/p>\n Sunday, Taggart made a post on social media saying he is progressing quickly after sustaining the scary injury during the Aggies\u2019 33-0 loss to the Utes.<\/p>\n Sitake said he reached out to Taggart on Saturday and that they communicated on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe prayed for him as a team and we prayed pregame and we prayed postgame, and we also prayed at the hotel before we left to go to our game,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cWe just really, really love everything that Harrison\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n Taggart began his college career at Oregon and transferred to BYU in 2023, making 16 starts for the Cougars in 2023 and 2024. He transferred to Cal in 2025 and Utah State in 2026 and was voted a team captain for the Aggies this season.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just wanted to wish him the best and a speedy recovery, and just thank him for the things that he was able to do here. I always say, \u2018Once a Cougar, always a Cougar,\u2019\u201d Sitake said. \u201cSo we\u2019ll always cheer for him and always wish the best for him, and that means definitely for him being healthy. Hopefully, he can get back on the field as soon as he can.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of guys here that love him and I know a lot of people in Cougar Nation are really thankful for what he did for us, and we still wish him the best and cheer for him while he plays for Bronco (Mendenhall) and the Aggies,\u201d Sitake concluded.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/A5SOPHTDVJDSFAU3EAWTUAAPKQ.JPG\")
Utah State Aggies linebacker Harrison Taggart (0) is injured and taken out in an ambulance during a football game against the Utah Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. | Tess Crowley, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, BYU had a bye during the third week of the season, but folks didn\u2019t complain too…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":["post-856469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news-feed-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}